* "The object of the first legislators was to govern the people; and the easiest method to effect it was through the priesthood, to terrify their minds, and prevent the exercise of reason. They led them through winding by-paths, lest they might perceive the designs of their guides; they forced them to fix their eyes in the air lest they should look at their feet; they amused them on the way with idle stories; in a word, they treated them as nurses do children." By thus playing upon the unlimited credulity of man, in a state of ignorance, through the delusive medium of supernatural existences, he is trained from childhood to submit to mental and bodily oppressions, which manhood would make him shake off, and spurn with indignation, were it not for these paralyzing deceptions, which, while they degrade, form the principal tower of strength against him in the hands of his oppressors. His belief in the traditionary tales of the Jewish compilation, is anxiously instilled into his mind in childhood, as the word of the Supreme Power of the Universe; and this false impression subsequently becomes so rooted and strong, that he neither can nor dares to see the immoral and destructive tendency of these tales; and, that from them have been drawn precedents to justify the most atrocious and murderous invasions of peaceful countries. From these mischievous legends have also been drawn, as a common fountain of evil, all those conflicting doctrines, dogmas, and creeds, which the militant priests of Christendom have made convertible at will, and turned into a channel overflowing with the good things of a world which they affect to despise. This is the polluted source from which has sprung what is falsely called civilisation, which has created around man an unnatural atmosphere, wherein vice and dissimulation are the chief ingredients, rendering civilised man in many respects, the vilest of animals; and more contemptible, because less virtuous, than the uncorrupted child of Nature.